Berlin!

Greetings once more! We are out of the thicket of our last few gigs in Italy and are now able to post more regularly. There’s a few weeks of catch-up to do, so let’s begin.

After several fun days in Frankfurt we packed our belongings and hopped a bus to Berlin. We had been told that the bus was a cheaper option than taking a train and a cheaper option it was, albeit a tedious nine-hour trip. Sitting in a chair for a really long time can be surprisingly tiring, and our energy levels were very low by the time we got to the bus station. Stumbling slightly, we navigated our unwieldy gear through the maze of the Berlin subway system and finally emerged on Oranienburger Strasse for our final destination.

Our home-away-from-home in Berlin was KuLe, one of the oldest artist squats in Berlin. In America, taking over an abandoned building in a major city and making it your permanent home seems a little unusual, but there are a number of such places in Berlin. East Berlin and its people were in terrible shape after the Berlin Wall fell and their subsequent exodus to the West left abandoned buildings everywhere. Artists slowly began to occupy and develop these abandoned spaces, many of which are still around today.

Kule was one of these, an abandoned apartment building with no roof and a tarnished façade that belied its cavernous interior. A group of artists moved into the building in 1990 and were eventually able to get legal ownership of the place, all the while using their meager resources to turn the building into a beautiful arty paradise. And paradise it was; gorgeous murals in every stairwell (some with permanent sound installations) a floor-to-ceiling mosaic bathroom and no less than fifteen artists living communally in some of the coolest rooms you’ve ever seen. The Art Monastery’s director lived in Kule for a number of years and hooked us up with one of his old buddies who still lives there. For seven Euros a night we got our own fully-appointed corner in the attic with blanket walls and a skylight looking out across the city center. Gorgeous.

In Berlin we had once again been hooked up with free circus tickets (thank you Gregg!) but were at risk of missing the show due to our late bus. Upon arrival we threw on fancy clothes, got done up and sprinted out the door to make it to the show in record time. Yes, we could have just gone in our street clothes, but this is us we’re talking about and it’s the CIRCUS! Our destination was the Chamaleon, an ornate ballroom in the middle of Berlin that has been retrofitted for producing world-class variete shows. This was a more contemporary circus than the one we saw in Amsterdam, resplendent with nebulous themes of Resisting Conformity and the Struggles of Urban Living. Replace Cirque du Soleil’s mystical language and psychedelic bodysuits with high-decibel rock music and edgy urban fashion and you get the basic idea. Though not as engaging as Circus Roncalli, there were some cool acts, including a terrifying four-man Chinese Pole act. Imagine, if you will, four men climbing tall poles, hugging their knees around the poles in a tight fetal position, then releasing their grip to fall nearly twelve feet before tightening their grip and catching themselves inches above the floor. In unison. Wow.

Going to the circus together is a special experience for the two of us and usually results in endless postshow scheming about developing fantastic new acts. After shows we also tend to scheme about running off with the circus and this was no exception. Know someone who runs a traveling circus? Drop us a line. Have van, will travel.

The following day took us to the Tiergarten, the Berlin equivalent of Central Park. We had high hopes for a peaceful day of lounging in the grass, but Berlin had other plans for us. We had been told there was a game that day, and figured that this meant that places like public parks would be deserted in favor of bars and public viewing squares. Hundreds of rowdy German soccer fans thought otherwise. The Berlin public viewing is so well attended that the only place they can hold it is IN THE TIERGARTEN. You can refer to our first Frankfurt post for an overview of German soccer culture, but for now it will suffice to say this was the biggest frat party we had ever seen, complete with the requisite indecipherable group yelling and assertive vomiting. We had fun nonetheless and enjoyed being outdoors so much that we decided to visit Berlin’s botanical gardens the following day.

As with soccer, the Botanischer Garten was even more intense than its Frankfurt counterpart. If you’re ever in Berlin, check it out – just take the subway to the Botanischer Garten stop, take a right at the giant strawberry and you’re right there. (Incidentally, the German word for strawberry is “erdbeer,” which for some reason provided us with hours of chuckles.) The Botanischer Garten’s breathtaking greenhouses and seductive paths were alone worth the price of admission (no, we didn’t hop the fence this time), but it was the pack of feral children playing on the lawn that made it an afternoon to remember. When was the last time a naked two-foot elf appeared out of nowhere to stare you down for the duration of your ice cream cone?

After Berlin it was back on the plane for the next installation of our saga…the Triumphant Return To Labro is next.